GERMANY: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has defended his foreign minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, against charges that he oversaw changes to visa rules that may have opened German borders to illegal immigrants and human traffickers.
Mr Fischer has said he will accept political responsibility for the growing "visa affair" arising from a decision nearly five years ago to relax tourist visa rules for countries including Ukraine, Albania and Belarus.
Berlin had told its embassies that if there were doubts about the credibility of tourist visa applicants, officials were to decide "in favour of the freedom to travel".
The number of tourist visas issued by the Kiev embassy alone more than doubled to almost 300,000 a year in the space of two years.
Opposition parties have picked up on media reports that organised gangs of traffickers started rackets to get prostitutes and illegal workers into the country posing as tourists.
The growing controversy claimed its first head last week, that of Mr Ludger Volmer, Mr Fischer's deputy in the foreign ministry. Opposition politicians, smelling blood, now want to bring down Mr Fischer, the linchpin of Mr Schröder's coalition government with the Green Party.
"If the opposition thinks it can topple the foreign minister, then it is terribly wrong," said Mr Schröder before a meeting of his Social Democratic Party in Berlin. "Joschka Fischer has my full trust and my full support and has the support of the entire coalition."
A parliamentary inquiry will start hearing evidence on the affair tomorrow morning. Mr Fischer said he was prepared to testify as soon as possible, but the opposition conservatives said they wouldn't call him before the autumn. That would drag out the affair into the election year. The government just recently overtook the opposition in the opinion polls, the first time since the 2002 general election.
The controversy may also damage the governing parties' chances in two crucial state elections, the first in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday.
Mr Fischer spoke for the first time on the matter in Berlin yesterday, blaming the problem on the previous government of Dr Helmut Kohl. "I take political responsibility for possible failures to act and errors by my staff. The principle of ministerial responsibility applies," he said.
Mr Fischer has remained Germany's most popular politician since taking office in 1998.
The only scandal he experienced came four years ago when photographs emerged of him punching a policeman in the 1970s, during his time as a radical left-wing street fighter.
He apologised to the policeman and denied accusations he had thrown molotov cocktails in street demonstrations.
The scandal soon evaporated and, despite his apologies, he remained proud of his youthful indiscretions. But now Mr Fischer knows that his career could be at stake.
"This is a political power struggle," he said yesterday.